


Of Heroes and Lambs

by BlueFeatherQuill



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Character Study, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Ficlet, Hurt/Comfort, Ishbal | Ishval, Kinda?, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Reflection, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9251744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueFeatherQuill/pseuds/BlueFeatherQuill
Summary: The Hero of Ishval learned how to cry like a girl. He learned how to sing like a girl and how to cook like a girl. He learned how to lie like a girl, how to curse like a girl and how to punch like a girl...Riza Hawkeye, the lion born of a lamb. The quiet dependable country girl who gave her all for other people's ideals. She lost an innocence she never truly had the first day she picked up a gun. But she gained so much more...This is just a little character study I did on these two a long while ago, I wanted to think about how they see themsleves and how they feel about who they are at their core. There's some implied Roy/Riza but it can just about be read as a platonic connection if you squint.





	

#### The Hero of Ishval

The Hero of Ishval learned how to cry like a girl. He learned how to sing like a girl and how to cook like a girl. He learned how to lie like a girl, how to curse like a girl and how to punch like a girl. When Roy Mustang left the care of his aunt and his adoring throng of sisters he was gifted with the sort of education one can only get from a group of women who knew all too well what life could throw at you when it thought you weren't looking. He learned that you had to always be looking.  
Which might be why he was the first person to see the flames that burned in the soul of a shy little country maid. He had thought he was there to learn pyrotechnics from her father but as it turned out, the girl knew more about how to feed a fire than the man whose life's work had been studying it. Roy left that household with yet another life lesson. That life and love, like a fire, burned brightest in that deep darkness just before the dawn.  
But Roy soon learned there were some nights that a fire could not keep at bay no matter how bright it blazed. Sent off to war armed with a weapon that burned its way through everything he called his own. The flames he had once revered consumed his very being until all that was left was the charred, gutted, skeleton of the boy he'd once been. One to match all the skeletons he left in his wake. Blackened bones for a blackened cause.  
There was no light in his life, no old flame to return to once his dark duty was done. Or at least, that was what he believed until the day his old flame burnt anew right where he least expected it. That night she reminded him of the most important lesson he'd ever been taught. The first. And out there in that barren desert, the rain that fell from his eyes quenched the fires that had burned for far too long. The Hawk's eye and the Hero of Ishval, war hardened and weary clung tight to each other and cried until the sun rose.

#### The Lamb

Riza Hawkeye, the lion born of a lamb. The quiet dependable country girl who gave her all for other people's ideals. She lost an innocence she never truly had the first day she picked up a gun. But she gained so much more. Her marksman's eye gave her life, gave her value, gave her purpose. Even if that purpose was taking the lives of others. There was a sweet simplicity in it. Until it wasn't simple anymore.  
It was strange, one day everything was right, black and white. The next it exploded into a litany of greys, and the darkest grey of them all nestled snugly in the palm of her hands. But she never resented the gun for the choices she had made. She owned her mistakes and repented in her own small way. Riza Hawkeye was not religious but she gave confession one night into the shirt of a soldier whose sins rivalled her own. And somehow the pair of them found solace in each other's scorched black hearts. The fire in him burning bright enough to give the illusion of light in the darkness.  
From that point on she worked to earn the light she craved in the darkest recesses of her soul. She had chosen a new purpose, one that didn't require her to carve out her heart, just to follow it, unerringly and ceaselessly, wherever it might lead. In the end it lead her to unimaginable places, but not once did it ask for more than she could give.  
She was willing to give her all. If that was what was needed, if the price of forgiveness was everything she owned, she wouldn't spare a second thought. But her heart never asked for it. For everything it gave her, the light and the warmth in a world where darkness seemed eternal, it asked for only one thing. An unspoken promise. A silent agreement. An invisible love between two lost lambs trying to prove to the world that it had no need for lions.


End file.
